'Half these apartments are empty': Mao’s former home city struggles with growth

'Half these apartments are empty': Mao’s former home city struggles with growth

Like many second-tier Chinese cities, historic Changsha is growing at a staggering rate – 460% in 10 years – leading to gridlocked roads, polluted air, surplus housing and overstretched services. What is it like to live amid such change?

Newly built tower blocks in Changsha.
Photograph: Nick Holdstock for the Guardian

A sprawling city of 3.7 million people, Changsha boasts more than 2,000 years of history. The capital of China’s Hunan province extends along the east bank of the Xiang river, in whose waters Chairman Mao used to swim when he was a student. Two millennia before, the city was a state capital under the Han Dynasty. There’s little trace of it today.

Much was wiped out in 1938 when the city burned for three days. More than 20,000 people died and two-thirds of the city’s buildings were destroyed after the ruling Nationalist authorities started the fire to stop the Japanese army from gaining supplies. In the words of an American missionary present at the time, Changsha “lay flat, wrecked and totally vulnerable”.

Today the city’s oldest neighbourhood is a protected area with narrow alleys of 90-degree turns and small houses where cats slink over the roofs. In its one-room Buddhist temples the air is hazy with smoke from hanging incense coils.

Though Changsha celebrates Mao and the many other Communist leaders it has produced, at present its most popular export is TV programmes, mainly reality shows or versions ofAmerican Idol. Hunan TV is the highest-rated provincial network in China; only CCTV, the national network, has more viewers. Changsha’s economy is equally impressive – between 2005 and 2015 it grew by a staggering 460%, the highest figure of any city in China.

Changsha's urban population has tripled since 1990 and public services are struggling to cope

Changsha’s gleaming subway opened in 2014, a year after ground broke on what was to be the world’s tallest building, Sky City. An International Culture and Arts Centre designed by the late Zaha Hadid is under construction. The plans for the centre show three futuristic petal-like buildings that look like they belong on Mars.

Modern Changsha may seem like a success story, but it faces several challenges common to many Chinese cities. Changsha’s public services are struggling to cope with its growing urban population, which has almost trebled since totalling 1.3m people in 1990. Its public transport system is overcrowded, the roads are often gridlocked, and like almost three-quarters of Chinese cities, the air is dangerously polluted. This isn’t helped by a lack of public green spaces and few dedicated lanes for cyclists.

Building frenzy

Weiying pushes her granddaughter around the Double Day apartment complex most afternoons. During the day the plaza is deserted; the loudest sound is the flickering of paper fans attached to the palm trees. The complex is located on the city’s second ring road. There are more than a hundred new apartment blocks in the vicinity, with at least as many under construction. Beyond this is just the lush green of the Hunan countryside.

When she worked as a government official, Weiying lived in the centre of Changsha, and she moved to Double Day just before she retired.

At least half of these apartments are empty because people have only bought them as an investment

Weiying

“I had to buy out here because I needed more space,” she says. “But my friends are all in town. It’s too quiet here. At least half of these apartments are empty because people have only bought them as an investment.”

Like most cities in China, Changsha relies heavily on revenue from land sales – its financial health depends on new construction projects and a healthy property market. As a result, the city has a housing surplus, much of it too expensive for most people – Weiying could only afford hers because government officials had the chance to buy at a lower price.

The city’s building frenzy was due to culminate in Sky City, a 220-floor tower that would have beat Dubai’s Burj Khalifa in height by 10 metres. The project broke ground in 2013 but was halted due to problems with building permits and safety concerns. Construction was suspended, with local people using the skyscraper’s foundation pits as a fish farm. Last year it was announced that the project had been dropped due to concerns about the environmental impact on the surrounding wetlands, which have since been designated a no construction zone.

Weiying is sometimes lonely living in an apartment complex with so few neighbours. “But it would be worse without my granddaughter or my dog. When people see her they come and talk to me. If I didn’t have a dog or a child, I wouldn’t know anyone.”

A render of the Meixi Lake development, to west of central Changsha. Once complete it is expected to house 180,000 people. Photograph: Kohn Pedersen Fox

‘All of us doctors are overworked’

Changsha’s Hunan Cancer Hospital, the main centre for oncology in the province, has seen a huge rise in patient numbers. One of its staff, Dr Li, who has worked in the hospital for over a decade, attributes this to the availability of cheap health insurance.

“All of us doctors are overworked and there is too much paperwork. The cancer rate has also increased. This is partly due to increased awareness and better screening,” she says. “But people’s changing diet and the environmental pollution is also playing a role.”

Li lives with her husband and daughter in an apartment complex close to the hospital. She grew up in Changsha and likes living in the city, but has little free time outside of work. She admits that the rise in patient numbers is only half the problem; the other is a lack of doctors.

“Parents are telling their children not to be doctors because they think it is dangerous.” She refers to the rise in violent confrontations with hospital staff throughout China, including in Changsha. In 2013 a patient attacked three nurses with a knife; the following year a doctor and pregnant nurse were badly beaten by a patient’s family members.

‘At least half of these apartments are empty because people have only bought them as an investment.’ Photograph: Nick Holdstock

She blames the violence on patients having the wrong expectations. “And doctors don’t have time to explain, so it will go on.”

I ask why she had wanted to be a doctor. “I don’t know. My uncle was a doctor. My parents thought it would be a good job for me.” She smiles ruefully. “And so I was jailed in this hospital.”

Would she encourage her daughter to be a doctor in Changsha? “If she wants to, it is ok. But I won’t suggest it.”

‘They have no hope’

Most of Changsha’s remarkable growth has taken place over the last three decades. But during the same period urban development in most other cities in Hunan has lagged far behind. Until recently the tallest buildings in Shaoyang, a city 220km south-west of Changsha, were its two Ming Dynasty octagonal towers.

Shaoyang spreads along the confluence of two rivers: the pale jade Shao river and the wider, brown Zi. Until the late 2000s most of its residential buildings were flats built during the Mao era or older houses with roofs of thick grey tiles that overlapped like scales. There was little investment in Shaoyang and massive unemployment from the closure of most state-owned factories in the 1990s. When I lived there in the late 1990s, many residents described it as a poor place.

Only in the last five years has Shaoyang begun to show signs of change. Road improvements and the high-speed rail network now connect Shaoyang to larger urban centres. Throughout the city, banners and posters repeat the slogan: “Construct a civilised city – build a beautiful and happy Shaoyang!” As part of this initiative, motorcycle taxis have been banned to reduce congestion. Although this has improved road safety, it’s meant a loss of livelihood for some, like Baoqiang, a middle-aged man who left school at 16 and has few skills except driving.

A retired teacher in Shaoyang whose house is scheduled for demolition. Photograph: Nick Holdstock

When I speak to him he is more concerned with a black patch of skin on his leg, apparently from an insect bite. He slaps his knee repeatedly and says: “I’m moving the poison around. My father does this and he has no black marks.” He slaps his knee again, and holds out his hand to me. “Smell this, it’s how dead people smell.”

Shaoyang’s better infrastructure has caused property prices to rise. The old neighbourhoods uphill from the Shao river are being demolished to make way for tall apartment buildings. The ground is littered with crushed brick and twisted metal. In the centre of the cleared space two small houses have survived. These solitary buildings in the midst of destruction are known as “nail houses” on account of the way they stick out. According to the foreman of the construction crew the tenants had been holding out for two years. “They don’t own the house, they were just renting it, but they still want compensation.”

The residents of the nail house aren’t home. The largest room has bars on its window and is piled high with boxes, clothes, and furniture.

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“Are they still there?” asks an elderly woman carrying a basket of leeks. “They have no hope. They should have gone last year. We’re going to move up there,” she says pointing to finished apartments further up the hill. “It will be cleaner and better.”

At the edge of the demolition area there is a skeleton of charred roof timbers; only the side gate of the house is intact. The gate contains several painted panels; from one an orange phoenix peers through smoke damage.

A man passing by with grey-streaked hair says the fire hadn’t been an accident. “The real estate company hired some hooligans to start it. Before this the windows and doors were broken several times. The police did nothing. They are on the side of the developers.”

He isn’t the only one who finds the fire suspicious. A retired history teacher down the street says there have been three fires since the real estate company announced the project. The teacher’s two-storey house is also scheduled for demolition.

“I don’t want to leave. My family has lived here more than 50 years, my father, and my grandfather too,” he says. “But I can do nothing. I can’t stop this city changing.”

Nick Holdstock’s latest book, Chasing the Chinese Dream, is out in September from IB Tauris

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